Tata motors rolls back flat organization policy

About the flat organisation policy: From the 1st of April 2017, Tata motors had undertaken, what is said to be, a biggest organisational restructuring plan in action. The plan was drafted when Cyrus Mistry was the chairman. The management decided to implement the realignment project even after his exit.

The flat organization or OE- organizational effectiveness plan was rolled out to do away with the middle management and multiple reporting. The core of the plan was to introduce speed, simplicity and agility in India’s Largest automobile maker.

The policy lead to shrinking the structure of the workforce from the then 14 layers to 5. Thus, the company had to discontinue with all the hierarchical tags like the manager, general manager, vice president, etc. The hierarchy system was replaced with specific functions of employees, which was expected to bring about a transparency in performance tracking of the employees and to enhance their performance.

Gajendra S Chandel, Chief Human Resources Officer, had then admitted that this was a challenging task and there was a lot of speculations on how people within would receive this strategy . It was doubted that this move would affect the Tata motors altruistic image. Chandel said that this move could still attract a talent that can deliver and is competitive.

Discontinuance of the policy: In spite of such optimistic views, the flat organisation policy was rolled back within weeks of its implementation. In a country like India , where people hold their hierarchical tags with much pride as compared with the West , the policy was expected to receive some negative response from the senior workforce. It was speculated that many senior employees would not be appreciative of such scaling down in the hierarchical ladder. It could also be the case that the employees were concerned about the outlook of their associates in the supply chain about their stand in such “a designation- free” administration. This proves that the decision to roll back this policy might be connected with the disapproval of the workforce.

To back their decision Mr. Chandel said, “Change is a journey and we will keep our pace with it. Our employees’ voice and their engagement is the most important topic under our action agenda currently and hence this decision,” added the company spokesperson.

The conclusion is that the Tata motors have taken down the “no designations policy”. And the organisation is geared up to reinstitute it’s commercial vehicle business to it’s deserved form.